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Vibrant Jung Thing Blog

Desert: Depression and Suburban Life

July 29th, 2008 · depression, depth psychology, Halton Region, Individuation, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life passages, Meaning, Mississauga, Oakville, Peel Region, soul, suburbia / exurbia, Wellness

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1_saharadune1 "Depression" and "suburbia" are two words that you don’t usually see in the same sentence.  Those who promote suburbia tend to want to portray it as a place where happiness and fulfillment abound.  However, as any therapist or counsellor can tell you, depression and anxiety are widespread in the ‘burbs, just as they are in the rest of our society.  It’s not that depression is more widespread in the suburbs and exurbs than elsewhere in our society.  It’s just that, contrary to the suburban myth of joyful care-free family life, many ordinary, normal people in suburbia are dealing with depression.

Depression is a fairly common occurrence.  How frequent it actually is depends a lot upon the level ofDepression_2 severity of depression that we’re looking at.  Depression is sufficiently common that it can probably be said that most people have been subject to some level of depression at some time in their lives.  That being said, it’s essential to not underestimate its potential for disrupting and impacting an individual’s life.  If you are suffering from depression, it’s important to take steps to deal with it, rather than just hoping it will go away.

Recently, a client said something to me that I think is very true.  Speaking about his own experience of seeking help for depression, he said, "I think that they were all focussed on treating the symptoms of the depression — but they really didn’t get at what it was about."

What is depression all about? Clearly it is important to take with all due seriousness the science of depression, which understands depression in terms of serotonin levels and all its other physiological and neurological dimensions.  But it is equally important to see depression as something human, with a human meaning for individuals like you and me.

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Is My Life Meaningful — for Me?

July 21st, 2008 · depth psychology, Individuation, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life passages, Lifestyle, Meaning, Psychology, Psychotherapy, soul, symbolism, Wellness

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One of the most fundamental questions a person can Dancing_woman_for_meaningask  is whether his or her life, taken as a whole, is meaningful to her or him.  This is different from an abstract question about "The Meaning of Life".  There is no abstract universal answer to the yearning that each of us has for a meaningful life.  Every "answer" that an individual finds in terms of meaning in his or her life is an individual answer, an answer that emerges from the very fabric of his or her unique life.  On this level the question is as important as it is urgent: Does your life or my life have meaning– not in the abstract, but to us personally? 

image: Arjan Hamberg //12186.openphoto.net

Meaning is to be found in the value that we place on our experience and our involvements.  It does not reduce to simply "just being happy": it is something more and deeper than that, something that is not incompatible with happiness, but that can abide through the difficult times and struggles of life.

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What gives meaning can vary greatly from person to person.  Sometimes it is found in our relationship to other people.  Sometimes it is in our vocation, if our work is meaningful or satisfying, or in our avocation — what we do with our time and our life outside of work.  Sometimes meaning is found when we can relate symbols intimately to our lives, whether those symbols are found in the arts, in organized religion, or in symbols that have emerged for us as individuals on a deeply personal level — symbols from the depth of psyche.

image: Christof Wittwer //7740.openphoto.net

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Into the Wild

July 15th, 2008 · Current Affairs, depth psychology, Film, Individuation, Jungian analysis, life passages, Lifestyle, Mississauga, Oakville, Ontario, Peel Region, popular culture, Psychotherapy, puer aeternis, soul, suburbia / exurbia

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Itw_wallpaper_04_800x600 If you haven’t seen it, "Into the Wild" is a 2007 film written and directed by Sean Penn, and starring Emile Hirsh.  It is based on the true life story of Christopher McCandless, originally recounted by John Krakauer in his 1992 book of the same name.  It’s a remarkable film, in many ways, and not least of all because of the different and sometimes conflicting emotions it stirs up in the viewer.  It touches on deep issues that underlie this suburban life that we share, issues of destiny and what is fundamentally important in our living.

The protagonist, Christopher McCandless, is a young man of 23 who has been raised in a middle class suburban home, who rejects all the trappings of this life for a life on the road, which ultimately takesItw_wallpaper_07_800x600_2   Itw_icon_3 him to the wilds of Alaska.  He attends a good university, and gets his degree, and then, for complex reasons tied up with his experiences of loneliness, alienation and superficiality in his family of origin, he decides to embark on a life that is radically at odds with the generally accepted values of our culture.  He burns the last of his money, and heads for a life of wandering.

Images: Paramount Vantage

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Rages: When Shadow Puts the Pedal to the Metal

July 11th, 2008 · anger, compulsion, depth psychology, Halton Region, Jungian analysis, Milton, Psychotherapy, rages, road rage

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There is no manifestation in our modern lives of what Jungians call “the shadow” that is more dramatic or potentially more deadly than road rages.  In its Wednesday July 9/08 edition, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported on a particularly tragic and deadly incident which occurred in the town of Milton, here in Halton Region.

Dashboard1_for_blog Apparently, two vehicles raced each other on the James Snow Parkway in order to be first onto the access to the eastbound 401, a major highway in our area.  After a struggle, one of the vehicles suceeded in getting ahead of the other, and it appears that the enraged driver then put on his brakes extremely hard.  The other vehicle swerved to avoid rear-ending his car, and ended up crashing into the highway median and rolling three times, with a tragically fatal outcome.  So a few moments of uncontrolled rage has led to the death of one man, and to terrible legal and personal consequences for the other.

I cannot be sure, but I would bet that, if we knew all the details, we would find that the two main players in this incident were decent, ordinary citizens.  How did they end up here, with this incredibly sad outcome?

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Wireless Email, the "CrackBerry" and The Psyche

July 3rd, 2008 · BlackBerry, depth psychology, Halton Region, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Mississauga, Oakville, Peel Region, Psychotherapy, Technology

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Blackberry_for_blog Ever greater numbers of people are carrying pocket-sized wireless email devices, or pocket digital assistants (PDAs) like the RIM Blackberry or the Palm Treo.  As a phenomenon, it seemed to start with people in the financial sector and in IT, but it has spread rapidly throughout our society.  Today an ever-growing number of people are linked to their work by this type of device.  For many now, the capability to end and receive wireless email has become an indispensable tool of business. The technology is amazing.  To be able to link with others via email through such small unobtrusive devices from virtually anywhere is fascinating.  I think for many people there’s a feeling of empowerment from being able to do this. © Mylightscapes | Dreamstime.com I have no expertise that would allow me to comment on whether these devices really do enhance individual productivity.  But a fundamental psychological question is “What is the real impact on the individual and his or her sense of personal power and agency?” [Read more →]

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Shadow and Soul in the Suburbs (or, Anywhere…)

July 3rd, 2008 · Psychology and Suburban Life

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There are parts of ourselves that we do not yet know, or that we are not yet ready to acknowledge.  We have an idea of ourselves, a picture of who we are, that is mixed in with who we wish we were, and who we think that we ought to be.  But the reality is often quite different than what we would like to acknowledge.  It can take real courage to face those disowned and partially known aspects of ourselves.  As Jung would have it,

…no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort.  To Shadows_blog_2_2 become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real.  This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with considerable resistance….  These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such….  (Jung C.G., Hull, R.F.C., trans., Collected Works, vol. 9, part II, paras. 14-16)

Yet these resistances and projections can appear in our lives in the most dramatic and unexpected of ways.   

The shadow can make a woman or man feel exhausted, burdened and thwarted at every turn.  For many years, possibly for his or her whole life, a person may have had an image of him- or herself as a certain sort of person.  Perhaps she has seen herself as having a certain type of morality or character.  Possibly, for a certain amount of time, he may even have succeeded in being that type of person.   Then things start to happen.

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